The Griz have shaken off a streak of bye-week losses and have improved to 3-0 with the massive match against EWU on the horizon. The defense and the special teams shined today while the offense had moments but seemed largely stuck in neutral, unable to consistently move the ball. Credit Cal Poly with a game plan that did put up some yards on this defense (over 300 passing) and a defensive plan that really seemed to be disruptive at times.
First and foremost though, this defense is something unlike I’ve ever seen from a Montana squad. They’re fast, aggressive, tough as hell, and even the depth guys can come in and play just as fast and hard. Poly moved into the Griz RZ 5 times and came away with just 7 points, they missed 2 field goals, had a turnover, and were pushed back so far they had to punt. Poly had 47 yards on the ground in 37 attempts. The Grizzly defense had a pick 6 and almost a scoop and score too. The defense doled out so much pressure on the QBs too and dealt a lot of heavy hits through the whole game. Per my count Montana had 14 TFLs today, 4 of which were sacks. The linebackers were in the backfield all day.
Special teams was on fire today too. Something we talked about on a recent GFP was you can usually find future stars from the dudes that make major plays on ST. Today we saw a Janacaro block and score, a Flowers KR, Macias perfect on his attempts, and some bombs from Buschini. There were also several other near-blocked punts, and yes we have to bring up as well that the punt coverage unit was fooled on a fake punt too.
The offense wasn’t good today, there’s really no way to spin it. If you take away the 65 yard Akem TD the offense didn’t have 300 total yards. Less than 100 total rushing yards and two big runs wiped out by holding penalties. The O-line seemed to have an off day, I believe that group had 3 or 4 holding penalties and a 2.9 ypc average. Cam was up and down, delivering some great passes when getting drilled at times, and then with some misses with quickly stalled drives. It seemed to me he was behind his targets quite bit, he also had some that were thrown where either he & the WR weren’t on the same page. I think we also saw today what happens at times when you’ve got young running backs, lots of side to side running but not a lot through the tackles, leading to short or no gains far too often.
Some quick other thoughts:
- The combined efforts of special teams and defense lead to more points than the offense did today. Playing a bad team like Poly that isn’t a worry. But this showing from the offense against EWU & MSU isn’t going to cut it. It won’t cut it against most playoff teams as well.
- Patrick O’Connell is already up to double digits in TFLs. This guy is a machine and rapidly building a hard to ignore Buchanan campaign. There’s a lot season still in front of him but I’m just loving the force that he is on the field. On a broader sense too, the trio of Welnel/O’Connell/Lewis is just a wrecking ball on that field. I think these three accounted for half of the total TFLs today.
- Was it just me or was there a little too much over-pursuit by the defense? Maybe it was by design but it seemed to me that on a handful of plays the safeties especially would regularly stay far outside and feed the ballcarrier back into the field which would lead to a little bit more of a gain. Sometimes it worked great, other times it wouldn’t. Maybe just a bad observation from a pedestrian fan though.
- Deari Todd has a surprisingly fast burst out of his stance, he had the Poly snap count down too. He missed a few TFL chances but blew up a handful of plays. This guy is getting more comfortable in this system.
- As I (and others) tweeted, this was clearly a “put it all on film” game. We saw a 2 point conversion, a statue of liberty play, and a wild array of sets from the offense – many of which had limited results though.
- Cal Poly found success throwing screens over the heavy UM blitz. Next week against better athletes at EWU that could be something to watch for. Montana could find themselves watching an EWU receiver sprinting away for an easy score a time or two.
- 7 penalties for 79 yards is kind of gross. Yes the officiating was a head scratcher at time but the holding penalties from the quick replays seemed clear. Kind of “funny” that Bobby’s sideline interference penalty might have been the thing to help snap the scoreless streak. (EDIT: not deleting the original line but it's been made clear to me that it was players subbing quickly after the whistle, not Bobby, and thus why he was so frustrated with the official after that play)
- Why doesn’t Monte come out of the tunnel anymore? No skydivers. No one signing the national anthem. Pre-game used to have more energy, a lot of it seems to have been lost or just thrown out.
- Great effort by Akem on his long TD catch and run, stiff-arming the last tackler right at the end.
- Cam got hit a lot today. I’d be curious to hear what the team meeting sounds like with the OL and Coach Germer. Was the pressure and challenge running just a good day by Poly or was this a bad/challenging day for the OL? Last week South Dakota had over 300 on the ground against this same unit.
- Poly ball carriers had quite a few broken tackles. EWU might try to exploit this and force more 1 on 1 situations. The Griz safeties had a few where they got beat (they also had plenty where they didn’t though).
- Clean game with no Montana turnovers, I like that.
- Buschini has a leg, wow.
- Gub is just turning into a total wrecking ball in the middle of the line.
- Belnap's pick-6 was pretty cool, totally fooled the QB dropping into coverage.
- Flowers is just getting it done everywhere. I’m really liking what I’m seeing from this guy where he’s getting it done as a WR or KR. He was blocking on punt and kick coverage too, a guy that’s just contributing everywhere.
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The big picture is that the Griz are 3-0 and headed into yet another major road test. Drilling down though this offense needs to find a far more efficient stride right away. Fortunately we’re playing great at night right now, even though Bobby hates night games. Bobby Hauck coached teams generally improve as they go, so I'm not worried here, but I do recognize that the next game they have is against statistically the best offense in the conference. Can the defense and ST keep us in the game if the offense is sluggish again? Was this just a bit of a choppy day thanks to the bye, poor execution at times, the heat, you name it? Tough to totally say, but I'm going to bet that it'll be a hard week of practice.
On to EWU!
Go Griz!
First and foremost though, this defense is something unlike I’ve ever seen from a Montana squad. They’re fast, aggressive, tough as hell, and even the depth guys can come in and play just as fast and hard. Poly moved into the Griz RZ 5 times and came away with just 7 points, they missed 2 field goals, had a turnover, and were pushed back so far they had to punt. Poly had 47 yards on the ground in 37 attempts. The Grizzly defense had a pick 6 and almost a scoop and score too. The defense doled out so much pressure on the QBs too and dealt a lot of heavy hits through the whole game. Per my count Montana had 14 TFLs today, 4 of which were sacks. The linebackers were in the backfield all day.
Special teams was on fire today too. Something we talked about on a recent GFP was you can usually find future stars from the dudes that make major plays on ST. Today we saw a Janacaro block and score, a Flowers KR, Macias perfect on his attempts, and some bombs from Buschini. There were also several other near-blocked punts, and yes we have to bring up as well that the punt coverage unit was fooled on a fake punt too.
The offense wasn’t good today, there’s really no way to spin it. If you take away the 65 yard Akem TD the offense didn’t have 300 total yards. Less than 100 total rushing yards and two big runs wiped out by holding penalties. The O-line seemed to have an off day, I believe that group had 3 or 4 holding penalties and a 2.9 ypc average. Cam was up and down, delivering some great passes when getting drilled at times, and then with some misses with quickly stalled drives. It seemed to me he was behind his targets quite bit, he also had some that were thrown where either he & the WR weren’t on the same page. I think we also saw today what happens at times when you’ve got young running backs, lots of side to side running but not a lot through the tackles, leading to short or no gains far too often.
Some quick other thoughts:
- The combined efforts of special teams and defense lead to more points than the offense did today. Playing a bad team like Poly that isn’t a worry. But this showing from the offense against EWU & MSU isn’t going to cut it. It won’t cut it against most playoff teams as well.
- Patrick O’Connell is already up to double digits in TFLs. This guy is a machine and rapidly building a hard to ignore Buchanan campaign. There’s a lot season still in front of him but I’m just loving the force that he is on the field. On a broader sense too, the trio of Welnel/O’Connell/Lewis is just a wrecking ball on that field. I think these three accounted for half of the total TFLs today.
- Was it just me or was there a little too much over-pursuit by the defense? Maybe it was by design but it seemed to me that on a handful of plays the safeties especially would regularly stay far outside and feed the ballcarrier back into the field which would lead to a little bit more of a gain. Sometimes it worked great, other times it wouldn’t. Maybe just a bad observation from a pedestrian fan though.
- Deari Todd has a surprisingly fast burst out of his stance, he had the Poly snap count down too. He missed a few TFL chances but blew up a handful of plays. This guy is getting more comfortable in this system.
- As I (and others) tweeted, this was clearly a “put it all on film” game. We saw a 2 point conversion, a statue of liberty play, and a wild array of sets from the offense – many of which had limited results though.
- Cal Poly found success throwing screens over the heavy UM blitz. Next week against better athletes at EWU that could be something to watch for. Montana could find themselves watching an EWU receiver sprinting away for an easy score a time or two.
- 7 penalties for 79 yards is kind of gross. Yes the officiating was a head scratcher at time but the holding penalties from the quick replays seemed clear. Kind of “funny” that Bobby’s sideline interference penalty might have been the thing to help snap the scoreless streak. (EDIT: not deleting the original line but it's been made clear to me that it was players subbing quickly after the whistle, not Bobby, and thus why he was so frustrated with the official after that play)
- Why doesn’t Monte come out of the tunnel anymore? No skydivers. No one signing the national anthem. Pre-game used to have more energy, a lot of it seems to have been lost or just thrown out.
- Great effort by Akem on his long TD catch and run, stiff-arming the last tackler right at the end.
- Cam got hit a lot today. I’d be curious to hear what the team meeting sounds like with the OL and Coach Germer. Was the pressure and challenge running just a good day by Poly or was this a bad/challenging day for the OL? Last week South Dakota had over 300 on the ground against this same unit.
- Poly ball carriers had quite a few broken tackles. EWU might try to exploit this and force more 1 on 1 situations. The Griz safeties had a few where they got beat (they also had plenty where they didn’t though).
- Clean game with no Montana turnovers, I like that.
- Buschini has a leg, wow.
- Gub is just turning into a total wrecking ball in the middle of the line.
- Belnap's pick-6 was pretty cool, totally fooled the QB dropping into coverage.
- Flowers is just getting it done everywhere. I’m really liking what I’m seeing from this guy where he’s getting it done as a WR or KR. He was blocking on punt and kick coverage too, a guy that’s just contributing everywhere.
---------------
The big picture is that the Griz are 3-0 and headed into yet another major road test. Drilling down though this offense needs to find a far more efficient stride right away. Fortunately we’re playing great at night right now, even though Bobby hates night games. Bobby Hauck coached teams generally improve as they go, so I'm not worried here, but I do recognize that the next game they have is against statistically the best offense in the conference. Can the defense and ST keep us in the game if the offense is sluggish again? Was this just a bit of a choppy day thanks to the bye, poor execution at times, the heat, you name it? Tough to totally say, but I'm going to bet that it'll be a hard week of practice.
On to EWU!
Go Griz!